1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to FLADE aircraft gas turbine engines and, more particularly, to such engines with counter-rotatable fans.
2. Description of Related Art
High performance variable cycle gas turbine engines are being designed because of their unique ability to operate efficiently at various thrust settings and flight speeds both subsonic and supersonic. An important feature of the variable cycle gas turbine engine which contributes to its high performance is its capability of maintaining a substantially constant inlet airflow as its thrust is varied. This feature leads to important performance advantages under less than full power engine settings or maximum thrust conditions, such as during subsonic cruise.
Counter-rotating fan gas turbine engines have also been designed and tested because of their unique and inherent ability to operate efficiently. Furthermore, counter-rotating fans powered by counter-rotating turbines eliminate the need for stator vanes in the fan section of the engine and at least one nozzle in the turbine section of the engine. This significantly decreases the weight of the engine. One issue regarding engine efficiency is the desirability of equalizing fan rotor torque between the counter-rotatable fans.
One particular type of variable cycle engine called a FLADE engine (FLADE being an acronym for “fan on blade”) is characterized by an outer fan driven by a radially inner fan and discharging its flade air into an outer fan duct which is generally co-annular with and circumscribes an inner fan duct circumscribing the inner fan. One such engine disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,121, entitled “Two Spool Variable Cycle Engine”, by Thomas et al., provides a flade fan and outer fan duct within which variable guide vanes control the cycle variability by controlling the amount of air passing through the flade outer fan duct.
Other high performance aircraft variable cycle gas turbine FLADE engines capable of maintaining an essentially constant inlet airflow over a relatively wide range of thrust at a given set of subsonic flight ambient conditions such as altitude and flight Mach No. in order to avoid spillage drag and to do so over a range of flight conditions have been studied. This capability is particularly needed for subsonic part power engine operating conditions. Examples of these are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,404,713, entitled “Spillage Drag and Infrared Reducing Flade Engine”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,963, entitled “Acoustically Shielded Exhaust System for High Thrust Jet Engines”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,227, entitled “Variable Specific Thrust Turbofan Engine”, and European Patent No. EP0567277, entitled “Bypass Injector Valve For Variable Cycle Aircraft Engines”. Previously designed FLADE fans had the inner and outer portions of a fladed blade close to continuous in section properties at the transition region or shroud separating the inner and outer portions or the inner blade and outer FLADE fan blade. This in turn resulted in the same number of the inner blade and the outer FLADE fan blades.
It is highly desirable to have a counter-rotating fan aircraft gas turbine engine that can modulate bypass flow from a fan section around a core engine to the bypass stream and to effectively operate at high fan hub and bypass stream pressure ratios to provide high specific thrust at takeoff and climb power settings and to operate at low bypass stream pressure ratios to provide good specific fuel consumption during reduced power cruise operation. It is also desirable to provide counter-rotating fan engines to eliminate the stator vanes in the fan section of the engine, minimize the number of nozzles or vanes in the turbine, and equalize fan rotor torque between the counter-rotatable fans. It is also desirable to be able to design the inner fan blades and the outer FLADE fan blades for maximum efficiency.